North Carolina enacts HB 926, easing regulatory requirements across wastewater, land use, building and consumer rules

The General Assembly of North Carolina ratified House Bill 926 on Sept. 24, 2025, a broad package of regulatory changes that span wastewater permitting, land surveying access, municipal street standards, building inspections, local zoning limits, and consumer disclosures for locked hearing aids. The act also directs multiple state agencies and rulemaking bodies to adopt temporary implementing rules consistent with specific statutory text and includes several temporary sunsets that end when permanent rules take effect.

HB 926 directs the Environmental Management Commission and other agencies to implement specific rule changes immediately and to adopt permanent rules substantively identical to statutory provisions in the bill. For wastewater systems, the bill authorizes either a county health department or an Authorized On-Site Wastewater Evaluator to submit site denial letters for subsurface systems and creates two regulatory pathways that allow limited permitting-by-regulation for small discharges and for fractional vapor-compression distillation discharges below 5,000 gallons per day provided there is no ponding or runoff and surface-water or groundwater standards are not violated. The bill also directs the Commission to adopt revised Falls Lake new-development rules and to exempt single-family and duplex dwellings that cumulatively disturb less than 1 acre from certain local stormwater requirements unless federal law requires otherwise.

HB 926 repeals G.S. 89C-19.2 and creates a limited right of entry for professional land surveyors. The new § 14-159.15 grants surveyors the right to enter private lands to perform surveys for locating corners, boundary lines, rights-of-way, and easements, while preserving landowner protections against damage and excluding entry to operating railroad property and land containing critical infrastructure. The act also expands civil remedies by specifying that courts may award costs, including reasonable attorneys' fees, in trespass actions and in negligence claims against surveyors.

On local government development rules, the bill restricts certain local regulatory powers. It prevents local zoning and development regulations from establishing minimum residential square footage, from requiring pavement design standards more stringent than the Department of Transportation's minimums, and from requiring parking spaces larger than 9 by 20 feet except for designated parallel, diagonal or handicap spaces. HB 926 also bars local governments from imposing waiting periods that prevent refiling of withdrawn or denied zoning map amendments or development applications. The law clarifies vested-rights and public-building exemptions, specifies consultation steps when state-managed projects are exempt from local regulation, and limits inclusion of state-owned land in overlay or conditional zoning districts without Council of State approval.

The bill changes building and inspection rules in several areas. It bars inspection departments from charging a fee or failing an inspection for residential-code structures when a permit holder cancels an inspection more than one business day in advance. For isolated model homes, the State Fire Marshal and building councils are directed to implement a temporary reduction in fire-flow requirements where full fire-flow is impractical or pending rule changes, and those changes carry a statutory sunset until permanent rules take effect. HB 926 also allows a culinary alcohol permit to be issued to a wider set of food businesses and raises the quantity limit to 12 liters of fortified wine or spirituous liquor (combined) retained in a business kitchen for culinary use.

Consumer protections appear in Sections 9 and 9.1. The bill requires sellers and licensees who fit or sell locked hearing aids to give purchasers a written notice, in at least 12-point type, stating that the device uses locked programming software and can only be serviced at specified facilities. Sellers must obtain a signed notice at purchase and keep records — including the notice, a detailed receipt, audiologic-test results and written recommendations — for at least three years. The State Hearing Aid Dealers and Fitters Board and the Board of Examiners for Speech and Language Pathologists and Audiologists are authorized to adopt implementing rules; the audiology and hearing-aid disclosure provisions take effect Oct. 1, 2025.

HB 926 affects administrative procedures and agency timelines. It increases contested-case notice requirements from 15 to 30 days for initial hearing notice in certain contested-case contexts and instructs agencies covered by Article 3A to encourage informal negotiation before turning disputes into contested cases. For certain wastewater general-permit proposals, the bill lengthens several regulatory deadlines from 20 to 60 days where United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) input is required and sets a 180-day deadline for the Commission to grant or deny completed wastewater applications; if the Commission misses that deadline the bill directs a 10% refund of the application fee per working day beyond 180 days.

Other provisions reduce oversight or streamline approvals in specific technical areas: the Department of Public Health may reduce operator oversight visit frequency for certain supplemental public water treatment facilities to once per month if a set of safety and monitoring safeguards are met; permitting-by-regulation can apply to certain non-surface discharging disposal systems; and certain private-option wastewater dispersal products may be used in traffic-rated private areas if a licensed professional engineer certifies load compatibility and the manufacturer approves the product for that use.

HB 926 contains targeted policy changes affecting local flags, racing facilities, and joint municipal power contracts. It narrows local government authority to regulate the display of official governmental flags on private property while permitting reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions to protect public safety. It creates a limited nuisance-immunity provision for racing facilities where the developer had obtained required permits and vested rights before adjacent property improvements or purchases. The bill also lengthens permissible initial terms and renewal terms for contracts related to joint municipal power agencies and certain support contracts to periods up to 50 years in several sections, and it specifies that those contract terms are not subject to additional State approvals beyond those required in the Chapter.

The act takes immediate effect upon becoming law except where the text specifies later effective dates. Many sections include sunsets that expire when permanently adopted rules consistent with the statutory provisions become effective. The bill was read three times and ratified by the General Assembly on Sept. 24, 2025.